Shamir, B., House, R. J., & Arthur, M. B. (1993). The motivational effects of charismatic leadership: A self-concept based theory. Organization science, 4(4), 577-594.
Summary
Charismatic leadership (also called “transformational,” “visionary,” or “inspirational”) is a leadership theory that deals with leaders who are able to motivate their team members to adopt a collectivist mindset (i.e., the preferred mindset of the organization). These charismatic leaders accomplish this using five techniques. The first motivation technique is “increasing the intrinsic valence of effort.” This means that the leaders attach a moral aspect to effort. This facilitates the employee’s attachment of effort to their self-identity. The second technique that charismatic leaders use is “increasing effort-accomplishment expectancies.” They do this by communicating high expectations and confidence in the employees’ ability to meet those expectations, many times by emphasizing “collective efficacy.” The third method used is “increasing the intrinsic valence of goal accomplishment.” This is accomplished by tying goal importance to group identity. The fourth technique is “instilling faith in a better future.” Charismatic leaders focus on ephemeral, future goals (as opposed to “proximal, specific goals”). This technique also includes “de-emphasiz[ing] intrinsic rewards,” which allows employees to construct internal reasons (todo: link to Festinger “forced compliance” paper). The final motivational method used is “creating personal commitment.” This happens when a relationship, role, or goal is integrated into the employee’s self-concept. Together, these techniques emphasize (and de-emphasize) certain values within a follower’s self-concept. These techniques are accomplished through role modeling and framing (also see Proposition 1).
In the followers, the transformation of the self-concept happens through personal identification, social identification, and value internalization. Personal identification happens when followers want to be like their leader. Social identification deals with the organization of the group becoming a more important part of the individual’s self-concept. These processes can only occur if the values and identities that the leader seeks to instill are already part of the individual’s self-concept. Instead of planting new values, the leader instead raises the salience of these pre-existing values and links them to goals and behaviors.
Application
I’ve been told several times that leadership studies are a dying field, but this theoretical paper still seems to have some application, especially for managers looking to motivate. Two more notes - charismatic leaders can be good (“Gandhi”) or bad (“Hitler”). There are some organizational elements that are more likely to be present when charismatic leadership is also present: performance goals aren’t defined or are difficult to measure, the situation has some moral element (e.g., unlikely to emerge in tobacco production), high levels of uncertainty or “exceptional conditions.”
PROPOSITION 1. In order to implicate the followers’ self-concepts, compared to noncharismatic leaders, the deliberate and nondeliberate messages of charismatic leaders will contain: (a) more references to values and moral justifications, (b) more references to the collective and to collective identity, (c) more references to history, (d) more positive references to followers’ worth and as individuals and as a efficacy collective, (e) more expressions of high expectations from followers, (f) more references to distal goals and less reference to proximal goals.
PROPOSITION 2. The more leaders exhibit the behaviors specified above, the more their followers will have: (a) a high salience of the collective identity in their self-concept, (b) a sense of consistency between their self-concept and their actions on behalf of the leader and the collective. (c) a high level of self-esteem and self-worth. (d) a similarity between their self-concept and their perception of the leader. (e) a high sense of collective efficacy.
PROPOSITION 3. The more leaders exhibit the behaviors specified in the theory the more followers will demonstrate: (a) personal commitment to the leader and the mission, (b) a willingness to make sacrifices for the collective mission, (c) organizational citizenship behavior, (d) meaningfulness in their work and lives.
PROPOSITION 4. A necessary condition for a leader’s messages to have charismatic effects is that the message is congruent with the existing values and identities held by potential followers.
PROPOSITION 5. The more the potential followers have an expressive orientation toward work and life, the more susceptible they will be to the influence of charismatic leaders.
PROPOSITION 6. The more the potential followers have a principled orientation to social relations, the more susceptible they will be to the influence of charismatic leaders.
PROPOSITION 7. The emergence and effectiveness of charismatic leaders will be facilitated to the extent to which: (a) There is an opportunity for substantial moral involvement on the part of the leader and the followers, (b) Performance goals cannot be easily specified and measured, (c) Extrinsic rewards cannot be made clearly contingent on individual performance, (d) There are few situational cues, constraints and reinforcers to guide behavior and provide incentives for specific performance, (e) Exceptional effort, behavior and sacrifices are required of both the leaders and followers.
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